A&M-S.A. has plans to blossom

Updated 11:27 am, Sunday, August 19, 2012

Tours groups go through the halls as Texas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

Tours groups go through the halls as Texas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News

Image 2 of 7

A tour group moves through the lower level as Texas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

A tour group moves through the lower level as Texas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News

Image 3 of 7

This month the Texas A&M University System regents approved providing $75 million to construct two new buildings on the Texas A&M University-San Antonio campus: a central academic building and the Patriots' Casa.

A tour group moves through the lower level asTexas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

A tour group moves through the lower level asTexas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News

Image 5 of 7

This month the Texas A&M University System regents approved providing $75 million to construct two new buildings on the Texas A&M University-San Antonio campus: a central academic building (above) and the Patriots' Casa. University officials said they might break ground on the projects in November.

Participants sign up in the lobby as Texas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

Participants sign up in the lobby as Texas A&M University - San Antonio offers an open house to prospective students on July 27, 2012.

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News

Image 7 of 7

A&M-S.A. has plans to blossom

1 / 7

Back to Gallery

In the only building on campus, the president of Texas A&M University-San Antonio looks out her window at rolling brush land and sees the future — a mushrooming complex of academic buildings, housing and everything else needed by a student population that could top 25,000 in the next 20 years.

The growth has already started and could help reshape the city's less affluent South Side, boosting its low educational attainment and drawing new residents and businesses.

This month, Texas A&M University System regents approved $75 million for two more buildings, including a massive future campus centerpiece, both critical to the university's freshly inked development plan.

“When we did the groundbreaking for the road ... in my mind, I was trying to be inspired by standing there, but I was having a hard time,” said President Maria Hernandez Ferrier.

“Today, I can look at our development plan and it's real,” she said, shaking her fists triumphantly in the air.

But the battle for more scholars and, just as critically, more funding is far from over. And the company that plans to develop about 1,900 acres around the university is regrouping in the midst of lawsuits and changes in leadership.

Plans for the future

The fledgling university, which held its first classes in portable buildings at a nearby community college, opened its lone building on the campus south of Loop 410 about a year ago. Between fall 2009 and fall 2011, enrollment shot up a whopping 52 percent — the fastest of any university in the state — to about 3,600 upper-level students even as other new universities shed ranks. But lawmakers last year cut $2.3 million from the university's state funding, which hurt its ability to hire more staff and expand or add programs.

Next year, A&M-San Antonio may ask the Legislature for some bond funding for a $70 million science and technology building, along with millions more for programs. Local lawmakers say getting that funding will require a fight.

In the meantime, the university plans to break ground in November on a four-story academic building designed to be the campus' signature structure, and another dedicated to veterans called the Patriots' Casa.

More Information

Texas A&M University-San Antonio past, present and future

1997-98: Texas A&M University System proposes a South Side institution after late-Sen. Frank Madla Jr. requests proposals from university systems.

The academic building design includes 186,000 square feet of classrooms, lecture halls, administrative offices, student spaces and an auditorium, said Marshall Lasswell, the A&M-San Antonio director of facilities and physical plant.

The 23,000-square-foot Patriots' Casa will be more than just a veterans' center sign slapped on a repainted basement, said Chuck Rodriguez, the university's chief of staff and vice president of strategic initiatives and military affairs. It will house certification programs and may offer counseling services, he said. Veterans make up about 11 percent of the student body, a proportion the university hopes to double, he said.

As of Friday, the university had registered about 3,800 students for the semester that starts Aug. 29. It is pushing to bring that total to 4,000 upper-level and master's degree students — using advertising, social media marketing and on-campus events, such as a recent open house, to draw newcomers.

It's a far cry from the 126 students of a dozen years ago, when the San Antonio branch of Texas A&M University-Kingsville opened.

Who benefits?

Some believe the school's South Side location may have a big payoff in raising the number of degree-holders in the city.

Most of its students are from the city's South and West sides — areas that officials believe will grow by hundreds of thousands of residents by 2030. Many are the first in their families to go to college.

The San Antonio-New Braunfels area ranks 84th out of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas in educational attainment, according to the Lumina Foundation.

Frank Madla III, son of the late-Sen. Frank Madla Jr., said his father pushed for a South Side location because of educational inequities between that area and elsewhere in the city. Before the new campus opened, the city estimated that only 0.5 percent of residents with a bachelor's degree or higher lived in the area's southernmost sector.

“You're taking people from families that haven't had the opportunity of higher education, and they'll go and their children are going to go,” said Madla, who is on the university's foundation board.

But the school will need to draw students from across the region to hit its enrollment goals, according to its development plan.

Jaizel Juarez, 19, could be among them. She attends the two-year Blinn College in Brenham. To finish her bachelor's degree, she wants to transfer somewhere that has “a small classroom feel” — like A&M-San Antonio, which she visited last month. It has a 20-to-1 student-faculty ratio.

“You get more in touch with your professors and teachers,” Juarez said. “You get to know a lot of kids around you as well.”

In about three years, the university hopes to begin accepting freshmen and start building dormitories, Ferrier said. But that will depend on legislators approving a request for $11 million to add programs, hire faculty and provide more student support. A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said residence halls would likely be built in partnership with private companies.

‘Engine right behind us'

As of last fall, A&M-San Antonio's growth had outpaced by about 1,500 students the enrollment of Texas A&M University-Central Texas in Killeen and the University of North Texas at Dallas, all approved by the Legislature as stand-alone institutions in 2009.

But UTSA's early enrollment rose even faster. In 1973, the school began teaching about 1,100 graduate and post baccalaureate students. When it added undergraduates in 1975, enrollment climbed to 4,400. After hitting 31,000 students last fall, UTSA officials now plan to taper further growth.

UTSA President Ricardo Romo said his school had an early advantage as the first public four-year university in the city, but in those days, it was inconvenient for students without a vehicle.

Development in the area soon followed, spurred by UTSA, the medical center, insurance giant USAA and Valero Energy Corp., Romo said. He's not sure the South Side has hit the same tipping point.

Others can see it coming. South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce PresidentTom Shaw expects A&M-San Antonio to have a big impact on the area economically, along with the Toyota plant, the Mission Reach portion of the San Antonio River improvements and regional fallout from the Eagle Ford shale energy boom.

Shaw said investing in infrastructure — streets, housing, education and more — is key to keeping up with the growth.

“Metaphorically, we're laying track and the engine is right behind us, and our challenge is to lay track effectively and fast enough so that we don't get run over by the engine,” he said.

The speed of the train came into question when lawsuits this year tripped the developers who donated land for the A&M campus.

The Nevada-based Verano Land Group LP, which raised $65 million to buy what would become the campus and surrounding area, sued the development's former managing partners and its law firm, accusing them of pursuing their own agendas and benefiting from a 694-acre donation for the campus after investors had only agreed to donate 400 acres.

The law firm then sued Verano to collect alleged unpaid legal fees. With both cases pending, Verano is revamping its plan for a 1,900-acre mixed-use development around the university.

When the project is fully built out in about 20 years, it could include hotels, commercial and industrial spaces, and residential and retail spots that would compliment the university's plan, said Tim Bartlett, Verano's new CEO.

Ferrier said A&M-San Antonio will continue growing regardless of the development. Several area lawmakers said they'll push for state funding next year but expect competition.

“We have to put our money where our mouth is if we want to attract all these jobs,” said Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio.

A&M University System Regent Elaine Mendoza of San Antonio said the campus may have to find innovative and entrepreneurial funding models.